I'm definitely not blaming people who email Gabe. I just think he's too important to be dealing with these things. Steve Jobs' email just went to a couple assistants who dealt with most of the emails. Gabe should probably do the same, or better yet, have a better system to help people direct their inquiries.

Maybe! But I think he really does reply to many legitimate ones. I sent a joke email years ago about how they misspelled some French on their blog. I was surprised to get a response and learn that Gabe actually does read and respond to that email address.

As someone who works IT in a corporate environment I can tell you that if Gabe reads all his emails, and assuming that Gabe gets emails similar to execs from the several companies I have worked for that half an hour wouldn't come close to cutting it. A thousand emails daily is easy for certain people and it becomes a necessity, not a lack of a personal touch, that people hire admin assistansts to go through these things.

I agree, but it could just be that he enjoys having masses email him about various topics. He also has a pseudo-celeb status so if he didn't want the emails he could just remove his name from the contact form.

But you know what? He's amazing at customer service. He's become a very public face of Valve/Steam, and probably has some of the most loyal customers in the entire industry because he genuinely gives a shit about the small stuff.

He is...and this is good and bad. "Should I work on half life 3 or customer service...hmmm...customer service wins" (and no shit i would let it win in this case too). What gabe needs is a clone, or maybe...2 clonesno wait that would make 3 of him. so 1 or 3 clones.

The IP says she uses Comcast as her ISP and lives in Hollywood but as others have pointed out it wont be static (so will be wrong), it does have the exact time and date though so somebody creepier than me could probably find out the real details.

If they were just chirping her or being dicks by going after her in game, thats just the breaks.
But to copy some ones profile, and sort of impersonating them in an unflattering matter because they are 'funny', isn't cool. And, if you think about it, it is exactly the kind of thing that anyone at the company with an interest in its well-being would take care of. What if the hassle gets so big she just gives up on steam, buys no more from it and just quits. And then these guys go after someone else. So while they hassle the next person into quitting, this girl is telling her friends and family what happened on steam and how the support staff did nothing. Lost $ my friends. And before anyone says he's already rich, there is 2 points to owning a company: freedom to create and money.
Also, the more money he earns, the more he can dump into HL3!

Sadly, it is just the breaks of being a girl on multiplayer games. You are the 'other'-- in most TF2 games you're a vast minority, and everything from your understanding of the game to your contribution to the team will be under suspicion.

Well, reading back over that it sounds a bit melodramatic, but still, the sentiment feels true.

I respect Gabe because it seems like he, above all of the other employees at Valve, actually respects the userbase. I know it shouldn't be a surprise but when do you see the owner of a company directly confronting the users? Not very often. Gabe you are fucking great.

While its cool Gabe took care of it.. Its kind of puzzling that now everyone thinks they have the right to email Gabe personally about their problems. He has a business to run and a franchise to continue... He can't be answering EVERY email about being harassed or why your game isn't working. Thats what customer service is for. Again, this is cool, and he is an amazing man for taking care of you, but I'm starting to think people just email him to get karma.

Because there is a huge problem with assholes being sexist and racist in the gaming community. It's a big concern to companies who need to capitalize on the larger market of non-douchebags for their economic success. So it is important because Gabe is responding to the harassment.